Male spiders play dead to avoid “sexual cannibalism.”

Spider sex can be pretty complicated… and kinky. Take wolf spiders, for example. It’s well known that female wolf spiders have a predilection for eating their partners during courtship, a behavior known as sexual cannibalism. Males, in turn, have developed their own tactics to avoid being consumed while still getting it on. This includes offering a “nuptial gift” of a tasty snack–for example, a dead fly or an eggsac from another female. The gift has been thought to help curb the female’s